Jon Davison

Production

1941-01-21

Jon Davison was born on July 21, 1949 in Haddonfield, New Jersey. Davison studied at New York University's Film Institute, where one of his instructors was director Martin Scorsese. While attending NYU Jon staged film retrospectives at the Fillmore East in the East Village. Davison began his career running the St. Marks Cinematheque movie theater in New York. Fellow NYU classmate and future film director Jonathan Kaplan suggested to Jon that he move to Los Angeles, California. In 1972 Davison hooked up with Roger Corman's prolific B-flick outfit New World Pictures, where he initially was the director of advertising and publicity. Davison made his debut as associate producer of "Big Bad Mama." He went on to produce the hilarious exploitation feature parody "Hollywood Boulevard," Ron Howard's delightful directorial debut "Grand Theft Auto," and Joe Dante's terrific tongue-in-cheek killer animal treat "Piranha" for New World Pictures. Jon left New World Pictures in 1980. He produced the uproarious comedies "Airplane!" and "Top Secret!" for Jim Abrahams and the Zucker brothers. Davison subsequently produced the excellent and exciting science fiction cult favorites "RoboCop" and "Starship Troopers" for director Paul Verhoeven. He went on to produce sequels for those two films. In addition, Jon handled second unit director chores on both "Rock'n'Roll High School" and "The Howling." Moreover, Jon Davison has popped up in small parts in a few movies; he's especially memorable as the tinny metallic voice of the murderous malfunctioning robot ED-209 in "RoboCop."